Leeza Ahmady, the New York-based, Afghan-born independent curator who organizedThinking Currents, talked with me by phone about her philosophy, history, and the process of pulling together this big exhibition of more than 25 works by more than 25 artists in just four rapid months.

The themes represented within Thinking Currents include issues of migration, environment, identity, technology, nation building, conflict, and stagnation. And what holds all of these Pacific Rim countries together? Water. The exhibition delves deeply into this unifying fact of nature, with artistic explorations in video and new media format of the various liquid and land territories in the region.

The Art Market team was free to choose galleries but received one directive from Allen: to highlight the region’s connection to Asia and the Pacific Rim. The fair features a large exhibition of videos and new media curated by Leeza Ahmady, the director of Asian Contemporary Art Week in New York, as well as many Asian galleries, including the South Korean gallery, Gana Art, where a sculpture by Yi Hwan-Kwon, which played with the three dimensions, proved popular with the crowds.

Second, with regard to curatorial elements, the fair included some off-site efforts organized by local figures and an impressively expansive on-site project curated by Leeza Ahmady, who directs New York’s Asian Contemporary Art Week. Titled “Thinking Currents,” this occupied a substantial corner section of the exhibition hall and comprised mostly video works, by artists from the Pacific Rim “and beyond!”

“⋯ a stunning exhibit of 25 videos and sound installations by artists from the Pacific Rim region curated by Leeza Ahmady, director of Asia Contemporary Art Week; and panel discussions on issues like environmental and geo-economical concerns in the region. Of course, there was an emphasis on tech and art wherever it could be wedged in.”

Among a handful of non-commercial pieces commissioned by the Seattle Art Far was an exhibition of videos organized in response to Seattle’s location on the Pacific Rim, titled “Thinking Currents.” The works touch on issues such as the environment, immigration, and migration, and include SEA STATE 6, Singaporean artist Charles Lim’s work for his nation’s pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.

The place is a mass of several thousand visitors, trays of beef carpaccio and mushroom arancini, and a free-flowing bar. The curated portion of the fair, organized by Leeza Ahmady, features works like Ho Tzu-Nyen’s Cloud of Unknowing, a portrayal of cloud spirits that mixes campiness and poetry.